Explanation:
What would it look like to fly over Titan?
Radar images from
NASA's robotic
Cassini satellite in orbit around
Saturn have been
digitally compiled to simulate such a flight.
Cassini has swooped past
Saturn's cloudiest moon several times since it arrived at the ringed planet in 2004.
The virtual flight
featured hereshows numerous lakes coloured black and mountainous terrain coloured tan.
Surface regions without detailed vertical information appear more flat,
while sufficiently mapped regions have their heights digitally stretched.
Among the basins visualized is
KrakenMare,
Titan's largest lake which spans over 1,000 kilometres long.
Titan's lakes are different from
Earth's lakes in that they are composed of
hydrocarbons with similarities to liquid
natural gas.
How Titan's lakes were created and why they survive continues to be a topic of research.